Legislative Update: False DCYF Reports - July 2026, The Evergreen
Legislative Update - False DCYF Reports
This spring, we finally won a long legislative fight by passing HB1565 (relative to the penalty for false reports of suspected abuse and neglect made to the Division for Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF)).
This legislative issue made national news recently, when former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg was victimized by a false report of abuse. You can read his account of this at https://petebuttigieg.substack.com/, “A Terrible Thing Happened to my Family”.
Such situations often happen in New Hampshire, whether it’s vindictive actions during/after an acrimonious divorce, or malicious people who want to hurt others. We heard testimony on how destructive such actions are, and worked hard to fix this.
HB1565 was carefully written to protect anyone who reports possible child abuse/neglect in good faith, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. That is critical to mandated reporters, and to anyone else who reports what they genuinely believe may be abuse or neglect.
But we must make it clear to individuals who knowingly make false reports to harm others that they will be punished for the trauma they inflict on children and families, for wasting limited state resources, and for undermining trust in the system. We will not tolerate any malicious misuse of our investigative resources - besides hurting the innocent families involved, every investigation of a false report increases the risk that a child who needs help may not get it.
The Democrats on the committee opposed the bill, and on March 11, Democrats voted against HB1565 on the House floor (181-141 division vote with the Republicans supporting and the Democrats opposing).
So why did the Democrats oppose HB1565? House calendar 10: “Because the reporting system allows anonymous calls and the bill’s language states reporters “may” rather than “shall” provide identifying information, any person intending to make a malicious false report can simply remain anonymous and face no consequence whatsoever under this statute”.
Of course, taking that statement seriously would require one to believe that police can only find criminals if they are thoughtful enough to state their name before committing a crime. Yeah, right - by that standard, we should not have any crimes on the books whatsoever.
And given the staunch opposition expressed by democrats to requiring reporters to identify themselves, it is clear that New Hampshire Democrats are not willing to help the families whose lives have been turned outside down by knowingly false reports of abuse and neglect.
Fortunately, our Republican majority was enough to prevail, but it was a battle that should have never been fought. Hopefully, this legislation will deter the next person that wants to weaponize New Hampshire’s Department of Children Youth and Families to hurt someone they dislike.
Please reach out to me at 603 267 4142 (call or text) or at dpmwindham@gmail.com (a quick call or text after emailing me would greatly help) with any questions or concerns.
Daniel Popovici-Muller
Republican State Representative Candidate,
Windham, Rockingham 17